This invention relates to a guide pin for electrical connectors.
With the extensive use of printed circuit boards as a mount for microchips and other circuit elements, it is becoming increasingly necessary to provide electrical connectors for joining the board's circuits together. Typically a plurality of daughter boards are connected perpendicularly to a master board, usually denoted as a mother board. With the larger number of circuit elements attached to a given board it is necessary often to make the connectors of longer and longer length to provide the additional pins required for the numerous electrical connections. As the length of the electrical connectors increases, it is necessary to locate one or more guide pins at the mid-portions of the connectors to overcome any slight warping that may occur in the connectors and to maintain the appropriate alignment between the connectors so that their respective pins may properly engage.
It is known to use stainless steel guide pins formed with screw machines. While these pins are quite satisfactory, they have several disadvantages. Among these are that their fabrication and installation is somewhat expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, it is not always desirable to form a guide pin of an electrically conductive material particularly where such material can cause inductive loading of the circuits in close proximity to the guide pin. The installation is not only time consuming but is also difficult since access must be had to both sides of the board. Because of the close spacing of the boards, this not always possible.